Heart Of The Dragon

With shaky fingers, Darius gripped the hilt of his sword.

“They always experience disorientation at first emergence. You must use that to your advantage and destroy them the moment they exit.”

Could he? “I’m not ready. I cannot—”

“You are and you will,” Javar said, a steely edge to his tone. “There are two portals, the one you are to guard here and the one I guard on the other side of the city. I am not asking you to do anything I would not—and have not done—myself.”

In the next instant, a tall man stepped from the mists. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face pale, and his clothing disheveled. His hair was thick and silvered, and his tanned skin was lined with deep wrinkles. He had the look of a scholar, not of war or evil.

Still trembling, Darius unsheathed his weapon. He almost doubled over from the sheer force of his conflicting emotions. A part of him continued to scream to run away, to refuse this task, but he forced himself to remain. He would do this because Javar was right. Travelers were the enemy, no matter who they were, no matter what their purpose.

No matter their appearance.

“Do it, Darius,” Javar growled. “Do it now.”

The traveler’s eyelids jolted open. Their gazes suddenly clashed together, dragon gold against human green. Resolve against fear. Life against death.

Darius raised his blade, paused only a moment—stop, run, do not—then struck. Blood splattered his bare chest and forearms like poisoned rain. A gargled gasp parted the man’s lips, then slowly, so slowly, his lifeless body sank to the ground.

For several long, agonizing moments, Darius stood frozen by the fruit of his actions. What have I done? What have I done! He dropped the sword, distantly hearing a clang as the metal thudded into the dirt.

He hunched over and vomited.

Surprisingly, as he emptied his stomach, he lost the agony inside him. He lost his regret and sadness. Frigid ice enclosed his chest and what was left of his soul. He welcomed and embraced the numbness until he felt only a strange void. All of his heartache—gone. All of his suffering—gone.

I have done my duty.

“I am proud of you, boy.” Javar slapped his shoulder in a rare show of affection. “You are ready to take your vows as Guardian.”

As Darius’s shaking ceased, he straightened and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Yes,” he said starkly, determinedly, craving more of this detachment. “I am ready.”

“Do it, then.”

Without pausing for thought, he sank to his knees. “In this place I will dwell, destroying the surface dwellers who pass through the mist. This I vow upon my life. This I vow upon my death.” As he spoke the words, they mystically appeared on his chest and back, black and red symbols that stretched from one shoulder to the other and glowed with inner fire. “I exist for no other purpose. I am Guardian of the Mist.”

Javar held his stare for a long while, then nodded with satisfaction. “Your eyes have changed color to mirror the mist. The two of you are one. This is good, boy. This is good.”

Chapter One

Three hundred years later

“HE DOESN’T LAUGH.”

“He never yells.”

“When Grayley accidentally stabbed Darius’s thigh with a six-pronged razor, our leader didn’t even blink.”

“I’d say all he needs is a few good hours of bed sport, but I’m not even sure he knows what his cock is for.”

The latter was met with a round of rumbling male chuckles.

Darius en Kragin stepped inside the spacious dining hall, his gaze methodically cataloging his surroundings. The ebony floors gleamed clean and black, the perfect contrast for the dragon-carved ivory walls. Along the windows, gauzy drapes whisped delicately. Crystal ceilings towered above, reflecting the tranquillity of seawater that enclosed their great city.

He moved toward the long, rectangular dining table. The tantalizing aroma of sweetmeats and fruit should have wafted to his nostrils, but over the years his sense of smell, taste and color had deteriorated. He smelled only ash, tasted nothing more than air, and saw only black-and-white. He’d willed those senses away. Better, easier to exist in a void. Only sometimes did he wish otherwise.

One warrior caught sight of him and quickly alerted the others. Silence clamped tight fingers around the chamber. Every male present whipped his focus to his food, as if roasted fowl had suddenly become the most fascinating thing the gods had ever created. The jovial air visibly darkened.

True to his men’s words, Darius claimed his seat at the head of the table without a smile or a scowl. Only after he’d consumed his third goblet of wine did his men resume their conversation, though they wisely chose a different subject. This time they spoke of the women they had pleasured and the wars they had won. Exaggerated tales, all. One warrior even went so far as to claim he’d gratified four women at the same time while successfully storming his enemy’s gate. For a nymph, that was possible. A dragon? No.

Darius had heard the same stories a thousand times before. He swallowed a mouthful of tasteless meat and asked the warrior beside him, “Any news?”

Brand, his first in command, leveled him a grim smile and shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” His light hair hung around his face in thick war braids, and he hooked several behind his ears. “The vampires are acting strangely. They’re leaving the Outer City and assembling here in the Inner City.”

“They rarely come here. Have they given no indication of why?”

“It cannot be good for us, whatever the reason,” Madox said, jumping into the conversation. “I say we kill those that venture too close to our home.” He was the tallest dragon in residence and always ready for combat. He perched at the end of the table, his elbows flat on the surface, both hands filled with meat. “We are ten times stronger and more skilled than they are.”

“We need to obliterate the entire race,” the warrior on his left supplied. Renard was the kind of man others wanted to guard their backs in battle. He fought with a determination matched by few, was fiercely loyal and had studied the anatomy of every species in Atlantis so he knew exactly where to strike each to create the most damage. And the most pain.

Years ago, Renard and his wife had been captured by a group of vampires. He’d been chained to a wall, forced to watch as his wife was raped and drained. When he escaped, he brutally destroyed every creature responsible, but that had not lessened his heartache. He was a different man than he’d been, no longer full of laughter and forgiveness. What Darius hated most was that a rogue group of dragons had mimicked the tale, doing the same thing to the vampire king, who had not been responsible for Renard’s tragedy, but who now blamed Darius for it. Thus, a war erupted between their races.

“Perhaps we can petition Zeus for their extinction,” Brand replied.

“The gods have long since forgotten us,” Renard said with a shrug. “Besides, Zeus is like Cronus in so many ways. He might agree, but do we really want him to? We are all creations of the Titans, even those we loathe. If Zeus annihilates one race, what is to stop him from wiping out others?”

Brand gulped back the last of his wine, his eyes fierce. “Then we will not ask him. We will simply strike.”

“The time has come for us to declare war,” Madox growled in agreement.

The word “war” elicited smiles across the expanse of the room.

“I agree that the vampires need to be eliminated. They create chaos and for that alone they deserve to die.” Darius met each warrior’s stare, one at a time, holding it until the other man looked away. “But there is a time for war and a time for strategy. Now is the time for strategy. I will send a patrol into the Inner City and learn the vampires’ purpose. Soon we will know the best course of action.”

“But—” one warrior began.

He cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Our ancestors waged the last war with the vampires, and while we might have won, our losses were too great. Families were torn asunder and blood bathed the land. We will have patience in this situation. My men will not jump hastily into any skirmish.”

A disappointed silence slithered from every man present, wrapping around the table, then climbing up the walls. He wasn’t sure if they were considering his words, or revolt.

“What do you care, Darius, if families are destroyed? I’d think a heartless bastard like you would welcome the violence.” The dry statement came from across the table, where Tagart reclined in his seat. “Aren’t you eager to spill more blood? No matter that the blood is vampire rather than human?”

A sea of angry growls grew in volume, and several warriors whipped to face Darius, staring at him with expectation, as if they waited for him to coldly slay the warrior who had voiced what they had all been thinking. Tagart merely laughed, daring anyone to act against him.

Do they truly consider me heartless? Darius wondered. Heartless enough to execute his own kind for something so trivial as a verbal insult? He was a killer, yes, but not heartless.

A heartless man felt nothing, and he felt some emotions. Mild though they were. He simply knew how to control what he felt, knew how to bury it deep inside himself. That was the way he preferred his life. Intense emotions birthed turmoil, and turmoil birthed soul-wrenching pain. Soul-wrenching pain birthed memories…His fingers tightened around his fork, and he forced himself to relax.

He would rather feel nothing than relive the agony of his past—the same agony that could very well become his present if he allowed a single memory to take root and sprout its poisonous branches.